Youth gambling: Nipping it in the bud

Studies show that youth-gambling is a problem that needs to be tackled early. Nearly half of the Singaporean gamblers started between age 18-24. The one problem faced is getting the "don't start" message across in a way that does not turn the youths off. A way to solve this problem is to come up with interactive ways to engage the youth, such as open forum to discuss why teenagers start gambling at a young age. Did the young ones gamble because they enjoy taking risks? If so, perhaps youth organisations can organise games that instill the same level of thrill but without money involved. But why do teenagers start gambling at a young age? In my view, it has to do with the technology advancement. Now with online gambling teenagers have easy access to gambling. There is no need to leave the house, find gambling partners, or worst still, their parents may not even know. The most common type of gambling is soccer-betting. The legal age limit for soccer-betting is 18 years old. Some of the people I know start soccer-betting at a mere age of 19. These people are soccer fanatics, they start by watching a lot of soccer and when this becomes boring, they try to add a little fun into it by betting on the score. Usually they would start small by betting $10. When they win, they gain more confidence and have a craving to win more money, as such they slowly increase the sum of money they bet. This is how most gambling cases start. Even pre-teens are demonstrating risk behaviours such as saying things like 'I bet with you' so often. In my opinion, this issue is a very urgent one and needs to be resolved quickly. With the Integrated Resorts in the pipeline gambling will be made easily accessible to more. I am against the idea of the casinos being built but it does bring some benefits to Singapore's economy. Gambling does not only affect the gambler but his family as well. If the gambler loses his earnings in gambling, he may borrow money to make ends meet. When he is unable to pay back his loan, creditors will come after him and his family. Another mistake many families made is to encourage a casual game of mahjong or Black Jack card game during the Chinese New Year period when families gather together. Teenagers may misconstrue this as 'healthy' family activities. I personally feel that gambling is something that will cause a person and his or her family to suffer and it should be discouraged at all ages and at all costs. Teenagers should learn to channel their time and interests at healthier activities.

Confessions of An Ex-Gaming Junkie.

Benjamin Toh, a student from a top boys' school was doing very well until he became addicted to computer games. This is very prevalent in our society today. Computer gaming companies are constantly trying to come up with new games to entertain our youth. Such an example is a Massive Multi-player Online Role-playing Game(MMORPG) called Maple Story. Fantasy games such as these are causing more and more teenagers to become addicted to the computer and as such causing their studies to deteriorate. The reason for teenagers to become addicted to these games is that it takes them away to another dimension of their own where they are free from stress and homework. It is a world where there is no stress, no parents and no work. It provides an outlet to help the students relief stress. However, why does this outlet keep students away from studies? The problem lies in the unwillingness to return to the real world. Teenagers like it when they are free to do anything they like without the restraining order of parents or teachers. Even those whose parents grounded from computer games will still not be able to study as their minds will be on the game itself and not on the task at hand. As such these MMORPGs capture youths and locked their minds in another dimension. In my opinion, addiction to computer games has also partially got to do with the parents and the people around the child. If the teenager experiences too much stress or pressure, they will turn to computer games as it is an outlet to relief stress. I myself play computer games and I am not afraid to admit, I too get addicted sometimes. I can play for around five hours straight without even realising it. This brings me to my next point, time management. Another result of this addiction is poor time management. On a normal school day, studies take up around 13 hours of their day leaving them very little time to play computer games. This causes the students to play through the night even though they have school the next day. When they are in school, they will be too tired to consentrate and as such their studies will go down the drain. Computer games by itself is not a bad thing as i have mentioned, it is an outlet to relief stress. However, it becomes a bad thing once a person gets hooked on to it, it affects their studies and their social life. The student would not want to go out with their friends just so he can stay home to play computer games. After awhile, his friends will stop inviting him and he will lose his friends slowly. As a remedy to this addiction, parents should constantly monitor their child's time management. The student must also be mature enough to know when it is time to return to the real world and if they are not mature enough they should not even start playing.


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Introduction

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